Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Victory Lap for the Point of Light Winners

The judges have consulted, tough decisions made from the sick bed—and now the envelopes are ready for the Point of Light contest.

A mighty drum roll please.

Best Secret Society, Barry Blatt with the Priesthood of Bakham:

Chief among the disasters was a collapse in farming and the fertility of the soil. For centuries now the Priesthood of the Underworld god Bakham has had charge of embalming and funerals - except they have been secretly making bandaged effigies of the corpses for relatives to bury and recycling the real corpses into vitamin supplements (the Sacred Dust of Bakham to be added to bread) and fertiliser (the Seeds of Bakham without which nothing will grow).

According to the secret sect of Priest-biochemists the long prophesied day has come, the vital minerals, amino acids and vitamins embodied in the biomass in the valley are running out and the radionuclides are becoming more concentrated. One faction says cull the already cretinous and crippled populace directly, another says let them wander, perhaps there is useable nutrient out there their natural urge to feed will locate.

Runner Up: Robert Parker with Obelisk of the Electric Brain.

Best Adventure Hook, Zzarchov with Gold Hoard for Weddings:

What is moving people to go outward? Weddings. Specifically that a religious need to have gold bands to get married and become an adult. Thing is when they sealed themselves in the valley they didn't anticipate how big their population would grow over time. They are out of gold and have been for a generation...

Going with the reason (gold), one old thousand year relic. A deposit receipt to a banking house, with an address. If it is still there, the gold found could make the PC's virtual kings back in the valley (able to extort concessions from "children" looking to marry.)

Best Something Out There, Robert Parker withFecund Mounds of the Toxic Hive:

Even a vast repository of knowledge such as the Electric Brain has limits upon its imagination, and over the centuries it grew weary of the various permutations of vat-spawn it could conceive. In its insane quest for novelty, the Brain labored to shape a creature that would produce genetic marvels that would surprise even it. Hence, the Magna Mater, Chalice of the Gods, was born.

A titanic series of interconnected mounds of ebon flesh, like a series of living hills, Magna Mater is riddled with cave-like orifices where a shocking variety of monstrosities dwell. Known as the Thousand Young, each of these unique spawn spill from the titanic womb that exists in the center of the Magna Mater's mass, loping, hopping, and squirming through the redundant series of "caverns" that comprise its internal organs until they crawl hideously into the world beyond.

Runner Up: Jason Kielbasa for the Mundaneum

Supplementary Kudos

Best Written But I Couldn’t Figure Out What The Hell Category to Put it In as a Winner, Jeremy Duncan with "A Ramble in the Ruins":

Of those that yet remain within the city, or what remains of it, I can report the following: They are a strange folk, pale and wan, inclined to thinness of hair and a certain fleshiness which, though not of such grossness as to provoke disgust, nevertheless inspires uneasiness in the lone traveler. There is a certain oily sheen to the skin, and an aspect of dulled hunger in their eyes -- as if they longed for rich fare and fine wines, but had long ago resigned themselves to stale bread and bitter dregs. The effect is disquieting enough when they are at their ease or at table, but it is alarming when, on those rare occasions when they speak directly to one another, or to strangers, to find that same ill-contented gaze meeting one's own.

Best Sneaking in of Vagina Imagery, Robert Parker

Winners please drop me a line at kutalik at the gmail dot the com and choose a prize from our pool.